Texas Education Agency changes how it grades public schools
Most Texas public school students are done with this year’s standardized tests, with school officials awaiting the state accountability ratings. This year’s version will be different from last year’s, and very different from the ones used for several years before that.
This year, for the first time, the work of many English-language learners will be included in the ratings, and a few of the state’s highest-achieving students will be excluded. New measures of “postsecondary readiness” are part of the mix. And nobody — not at the state or district level — knows exactly what the effect of those changes will be.
The ratings are still mostly based on a variety of ways to analyze results of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness — the STAAR tests. Also included are graduation and diploma plan statistics and results of college board and some other national exams.
And also new this year: state-mandated, locally designed ratings to be issued by every school district.
More at http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20140511-texas-education-agency-changes-how-it-grades-public-schools.ece .
